November 17, 2015

"Even for a journalist who has covered war close-up since 2001, Naj told me that what he saw in the course of recording this documentary shook him. 'That was a shocking moment to see those children learning jihad; it was the most horrible moment I felt ever in my journalism life.' That moment, he said, gave him a glimpse into the future, a look at a new generation of warriors who would have no concept of living in peace. 'I cannot see any bright future for Afghanistan,' he said."

95 comments:

When we walked away from the Soviet fight in Afghanistan, the Saudis and their Wahhabi friends stepped in and popularized the maddrassa in the frontier provinces of Pakistan and went on a building spree.

The Taliban came out of those schools.

Now as we walk away from Afganistan, even more extreme versions of the same are occurring.

It makes me sad for my friends and colleagues who I lived and worked with in Pakistan during the 90's, who will no doubt continue to see the worst parts of this development ... As they have been for years now.

This made me think of the Christian verse, MATTHEW 18:6, "But whosoever shall cause one of these little ones who believe in me to fall, it would be better for him that a millstone such as is turned by an ass be hanged about his neck and that he be sunk in the depth of the sea."

The schools exist in this country. Where Jews are portrayed as lice, vermin, non human. In this country...funded by the Saudi's. But playing golf, and worrying about 'gender issues' is so much more important than dealing with real threats.

President Hillary will, I am sure, do for the US what she did for Iraq and Libya and Afghanistan.

And former President Obama will be around to praise her for her contribution to world peace when she does so, while condemning those pesky Republicans for even thinking anything else could have happened.

When we walked away from the Soviet fight in Afghanistan, the Saudis and their Wahhabi friends stepped in and popularized the maddrassa in the frontier provinces of Pakistan and went on a building spree.

The Taliban came out of those schools.

Theywere recruited well into the teenage years I think, and they didn't get everybody or probably a majority.

The real problem happened during the 1980s. The Reagan Adminsitration funneled all aid to the fighters in Afghanistan through Pakistan's rogue military intelligence agency, the Interservices Intelligence agency, or ISI, and these people supported only Islamists. Islamic fundamentalists (as they were called them) of various kinds. But no democrats or non-Islamists. Everything was organized along Islamic lines.

Why? One guess: The Saudis and the Chinese didn't want anything democratic, and neither was that good for corrupt individuals in the Pakistani military.

These Islamists were a danger in 1989, but only a danger at that point. IT took them about five years to seize power in Afghanistan.

They kept on getting supported by the ISI and the ISI is world class at deception. Better maybe than anyone during World War II. Look at this, they haven't been held to account yet for supporting Osama bin Laden. In fact bin Laden was probably an ISI agent. As was Mullah Omar and all the rest of them in Afghanistan. If someone shows streaks of independence they get the United States to do a drone strike against them.

Evil aside for a moment, I was interested in the teaching method of whispering the answer to the students so they could answer out loud. I imagined using that in law school teaching. How strange it would be.

Back to the evil teacher in that classroom... he was weirdly namby-pamby and the students were so obedient. How did that happen? Was everyone pre-threatened? Were they promised treats? How did they get those numbed, zombie kids in the first place? In America we use drugs, but I assume some other method of calming was used.

That teacher seemed to need some exercise. Flabby stomach and arms. Don't they have those monkey bars anymore?

Evil aside for a moment, I was interested in the teaching method of whispering the answer to the students so they could answer out loud.

It's a catechism.

It's also fake - they wanted to pretend it's been going on a lot longer than it has and the children already know the answers. I guess the teacher figured that the audio wouldn't catch them whispering - and besides what else could he do?

When one of the basic tenets of your religion is hate, then 'making' kids act a certain way isn't a problem. When your entire believe structure is based on hate for anyone different than you, children simply accept it as fact. But just keep repeating 'religion of peace'. And I am certain your local university has local chapter of the BDS or a CAIR group that will educate you properly.

That teacher was once a child, taught by some teacher in a classroom like that.

This has only been going on for less tahn 35 years.

There was not a sign of this when President Obama was a child in Indonesia in the late 1960s (although he should have picked up some information about the 1965/1966genocide, about which he's said nothing) and neither had it started in 1981, when he took a trip through Pakistan. That's about when it started.

Pakistan's president Zia started all this - although he seems to have been killed later, in 1988.

Pakistan did have close ties to people in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, as well as to China.

In 1989, Pakistan and Iran seem to have bene in competition. Salman Rushdie was first made a villain by Islamists in India, probably supported by Pakistan, but then ayatollah Khomeini tok the cause away from them.

Sammy Finkelman is right. It was Zia Ul Haq who started this in the 70s, over islamization of Pakistan with funds from the Saudis, of course. All to push India back in its progress then and Zia ul Haq famously called it death by 1000 cuts.

"The Reagan Adminsitration funneled all aid to the fighters in Afghanistan through Pakistan's rogue military intelligence agency, the Interservices Intelligence agency, or ISI, and these people supported only Islamists. Islamic fundamentalists (as they were called them) of various kinds. But no democrats or non-Islamists."

This is not entirely accurate. The Reagan Administration funneled most (not "all") aid to the Afghan fighters through the ISI. ISI supported mostly (not "only") Islamists. Of the Peshawar Seven, yes, Hekmatyar's Hezb-i Islami was, by far, ISI's favored branch. But the remaining parties-- Rabbani/Massoud's Jamiat, Mohammad Nabi's Harakat Inqilab, Yunus Khalis's Hezb-i Islami, Mojaddedi's Jebh-i Najat, Pir Gailani's Mahaz-i Milli, and Sayyaf's Ittihad-- all received some degree of funding from ISI. Mahaz, in particular, could not be considered Islamist (which is why we were believed to want one of its military leaders, the ill-fated Abdul Haq, to take on a political role in the opening salvos of OEF). Most of ISI's "spread it around a little" was probably due to the influence of the Unity's "coordinator," Abdul Rahim Wardak, of course.

Outside just using ISI, the CIA also some funneled money directly to each of the Peshawar Seven- chiefly, Massoud's Jamiat and Pir Gailani's Mahaz- as well as to non-Unity resistance groups such as Sheikh Muhsini's Harakat, Raad and even Wahdat. After his defection, Dostum's Junbish also received US support.

Somehow, over the years, American observers have transformed "mostly" into "only" but that is not historically accurate. I think it's similar to our tendency to do that to just about every historical narrative- elminate the nuance so we can tell an easier story. But it doesn't make it accurate.

While there was already a considerable amount of protest by Muslims in the first months after the book's publishing, the fatwa issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, created a major international incident.

On 14 February 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini, a Shi'a Muslim leader, issued a fatwa calling for the death of Rushdie and his publishers. Khomeini is thought to have issued the fatwa after hearing about a 10,000-strong protest against Rushdie and his book in Islamabad, Pakistan, where six protesters were killed in an attack on the American Cultural Center

"And "moderate Islam" funds this, lets it happen, and provides shelter for the individuals. But "moderate Islam" is not part of the problem."

I don't know what "moderate Islam" means- I've found the definition changes depending on whom you are talking to- but I suspect that, by any definition, there's probably no place on Earth where it exists in smaller proportion than "Pashtunistan"- meaning the South and Southeast parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan's FATA.

However, go to Malaysia, Indonesia or even Uzbekistan, and you will see a very different society. One shouldn't expect Americans, Russians and Georgians to all be the same, either, just because they're all "Christian" or "white."

Mark: When we walked away from the Soviet fight in Afghanistan, the Saudis and their Wahhabi friends stepped in and popularized the maddrassa in the frontier provinces of Pakistan and went on a building spree.

The Taliban came out of those schools.

Now as we walk away from Afganistan, even more extreme versions of the same are occurring.

Oddly, starting by extirpating the cancer of Saudi influence is never seen as a reasonable alternative to the insane belief that we can fix these places by pouring untold trillions into keeping a massive military presence in them, forever and ever and ever and ever. 99.99999999999% of Muslims in these places are totally fabulous and down with freedom and tolerance, yet somehow the extremists always manage to take over if there aren't enough Iowa boys around to get their limbs blown off and brains blown out.

You cannot declare war on 20% of humanity and hope to win.

Yet somehow it's in our power to to dictate to 20% of humanity how they ought to be running their countries the way we'd prefer them to.

Plus you play right into their hand, declare the war they want us to ...

There are a million monkeys on the internet right now pompously invoking this "playing right into their hands!" phrase. Unless you're going to explain exactly why specific Policy X (not just someone's less than admiring opinion of Muslims in general) is "letting the terrorists win", with something beyond vapid clichés about "1.2 billion Muslims!", I'd recommend dropping it. It just makes you sound like a stupid drone.

...an unwinnable one that will bankrupt us and leave us with shattered veterans to care for.

Unlike the one you seem to be advocating here, which appears to involve using military means to "fix" places like Afghanistan and Pakistan?

When we walked away from the Soviet fight in Afghanistan, the Saudis and their Wahhabi friends stepped in and popularized the maddrassa in the frontier provinces of Pakistan and went on a building spree.

The Taliban came out of those schools.

Now as we walk away from Afganistan, even more extreme versions of the same are occurring.

Also, it seems odd:

We go there and we're responsible for kids turning into jihadis.We leave and we're responsible for kids turning into jihadis.

Why the push for us to leave because it was "Radicalizing" people when, according to you, our leaving is what causes the radicalization?

Well, you've moved the goal posts from "moderate Islam" (a religious philosophy) to "moderate Muslim nations" (though, I believe, you actually mean "moderate Muslim states" as nationhood is not the same thing as statehood, right?). And you're implicitly defining the standard for "moderate" as something like "offering sanctuary and protection to those who criticize Islam"? Is that your definition of moderate?

Bobby,My definition of "moderate" Muslim is a Muslim who doesn't turn a blind eye to the atrocities of their more active co-religionists. Yes, a moderate Muslim state/nation should be willing to provide shelter to Muslims such as Ali and Rushdie, because a moderate Muslim would not feel that what they did was deserving of execution.

This note, with the definition below, is being sent to you in response to your presumed claim to be a “Moderate Muslim” as per your ________ of ______.. If you are indeed such a person, then you will have no problems falling within the definition of “Moderate Muslim” given below.

“MODERATE MUSLIM” DEFINED

1.A person who makes a very public proclamation that s/he is a Muslim along with giving out his/her name, address, occupation and place of employment.2.A a person who then makes a very public rejection and condemnation of all of the teachings within the Koran, Hadith, Sharia and other Islamic teachings which allow or encourage, and sometimes command, the use of murder (eg Killing anyone who “insults” Mohammed or the Koran), rape and enslavement, genocide (eg Killing all Jews), perpetual war with “unbelievers” until they submit to Islam, lying to and stealing from such “unbelievers” and the very inferior legal and social status given by Islam to all “unbelievers” and all women.3.A person who then demands that all such teachings be stricken and removed from the Islamic texts noted above.4.A person who then very publicly inks-out of an Arabic copy of the Koran all those verses which support the above noted, inhumane and anti-civilization acts.

Of course, you would be much more believable, as to your claim of being a “Moderate Muslim” if you would very publicly state the historical truths that Mohammed of Mecca and Medina was a murderer, bandit, liar and treaty-breaker and the perverted sexual abuser of a nine-year-young girl-child.

Now, are you a “Moderate Muslim” or a standard-and-dangerous follower of the ideology called Islam with all of its differences in teachings from the Faiths of the Jews, Christians, Baha'i and Sikhs?

"My definition of "moderate" Muslim is a Muslim who doesn't turn a blind eye to the atrocities of their more active co-religionists."

I mean, how is #NotInMyName not meeting that standard? I mean, I get it if you think it's lame, ineffectual and not going to make any kind of difference as the vast majority of these social media campaigns tend to be (that's actually how I view it). But to turn around and say that it doesn't qualify as "not turning a blind eye to the atrocities of their more active co-religionists" doesn't make much sense to me.

Okay, I'm getting confused... Muslims all over the globe condemining IS terrorism on Twitter means nothing- they have to take action. On the othe thread, I'm told that Kurdish Peshmerga and Free Syrian Army fighters fighting IS terrorists in Syria also doesn't count. So, like, what actually counts?

Bobby,Somehow you decided that I said that there are no moderate Muslims. Can you point out that post of mine? You must be a graduate of the Robert Cook Equivalency course. I do support the Kurds, and they would clearly fit my definition.

@Bobby, While I am loathe to give credit to the SAA and Quods force (Iranian made IEDS were an issue for us in Iraq) I will say that ISIL is fighting them as apostates as well, and full faith and credit goes to Jordan and King Abdullah for taking the fight to Syria.

I think that this is a problem that needs to be handled by Muslims and fought on a religious reformation front as well as a military one. The problem as I see it is that they are rapidly running out of time before the west decides that we are going to solve the problem, which is going to result in lots of blood and fire.We solved Nazism by setting fire to the country, when all the little fires in Hamburg became one big fire we sat scientists down to try and figure out create a firestorm purpose.We nuked Japan, and guys like Spaatz were for it because it was less horrible than what we doing already (April 9th Tokyo fire raid)Hell we burned Atlanta and Columbia and those were our own cities.

I'm glad Muslims are starting to stand up worldwide because they are not going to like the results if they let us handle it.

I think that this is a problem that needs to be handled by Muslims and fought on a religious reformation front as well as a military one.

The problem is, Islam explicitly rejects the idea of reformation. It demands submission to the will of Allah, and expects all good Muslims to live their lives according to the words and examples of Mohammed.

Even suggesting a reformation of Islam is enough to get you arrested and tortured in most Islamic countries.

People tweeting means nothing. When they start taking action, that will mean something.

It's only governments that need to take action, but anything that pretends to be a government must, not only condemn, but threaten and carry out actions against people who would commit murder. Lesser crimes, too.

Some, Like the Kingdom of Jordan, some to be willing to carry out, but not threaten.

"Somehow you decided that I said that there are no moderate Muslims. Can you point out that post of mine? You must be a graduate of the Robert Cook Equivalency course. I do support the Kurds, and they would clearly fit my definition.

Do you think that the Kurds are representative of Islam?"

Ah, got it. To be clear, I was referencing the other thread that explicitly rejects there are moderate Muslims, including the Kurds and the FSA, and floated it to you as a trial balloon- not that you, personally, had said that. Okay, so if the Kurd fit your definition of a "moderate" Muslim, then I would answer that there are exponentially more "moderate" Muslims than there are "extremist" or "radical" Muslims on this planet. Exponentially more. There's something like 1.6 to 1.8 billion Muslims on the planet. The Kurds are not the most "moderate" (by your definition), and would generally be matched or exceeded in "moderate-ness" by the Indonesians (~204M), Bangladesh (~150M), Nigeria (~75M), Turkey (~75M), Ethiopia (~28M), Uzbeks (~27M), Chinese (~23M), Malaysians (~17M), Tanzanians (~13M), Senegalese (~12M), the USA (~2.5M), and many more. (Depending on what we really cared to understand, we'd also have to differentiate between regimes and the population at large-- like, as we quickly learned, not all Germans and Japanese were evil). This isn't to say that all of these countries don't have bad apples- clearly, they all do and I've worked against many of them in my previous life- but with a population of 1.6-billion, it doesn't take a very high percentage to cause a lot of damn problems on this planet.

Put another way, there's about 700,000 state and local police in the US. If there were only 7 "murdering cops" in the entire country- certainly below prosecution rates- that would be just 1 per 100,000 or 0.00001%, and conservatives (rightly) point out that condemning all police for such a small population is not fair. And yet the same percentage of "terrorist Muslims" worldwide would yield 18,000 ... which, if you extrapolate from what about two dozen terrorists did in last weekend's tragedy in France, suggests that, statistically-speaking, we're not even close to the light at the end of the tunnel.

Well, come on, man- I used your definition of the Kurds as being "moderate." Now you're telling me that criticism of Jews from official or religious leaders is grounds for exclusion. I don't see how you're including the Kurds as "moderate" if that's your definition.

I, for one, am not trying to de-Islamicize Islam. I'm just trying to get (mostly) Arab and Afghan Muslims to live more like Malaysian and Albanian Muslims. To do that, we're going to need to use both the carrot and the stick, i.e., a lot of them are going to have to be killed and a lot of them are going to have to accept that they cannot achieve victory through violence, and to do that we have to do it with surgical instruments, not blunt objects. We won't achieve that in my lifetime- that's why we've stopped calling it the Long War, and started calling it the Forever War.

"Criticism" of Jews? I suppose that calling them monkeys/pigs, advocating that they be pushed into the sea, publishing school books whose maps omit Israel, etc. would fall into a very broad definition of "criticism."

Tell me what you think they would do to the Jews if their nation was adjacent to Israel, and the military forces were switched.

The Nazis also educated German children for war, and inhumanity, but when these children grew up, and the Nazis were gone, they didn't act that way."

You are not advocating the kind of brutality that was able to bring that kind of change in thinking are you? The kind of brutality that it took to create a pacifist Japan? Could anybody have imagined a pacifist Japan in 1935? But it took some serious brutality.

What finally broke the Church's stranglehold on Europe was the Black Death and the church's powerlessness in its face. Is that the kind of re-education you are talking about?

Again, one can easily find Kurdish officials and religious leaders expressing these sentiments- you nonetheless declared the Kurds as "moderate" by your definition, so I'm merely going by your standard. My apologies if you didn't set the right standard.

In any case, the Anti-Defamation League (formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of of B'nai B'rith, on whose Orange County board my parents sat when they were younger) surveys anti-Semitism across the globe, and if we pull up the some American and European "benchmark" countries and the countries that I listed as being 'as moderate as the Kurds,' we get the following statistics:

Some rather high rates of anti-Semitism, no doubt about it, although sadly not much worse off than many Christian countries and even some Muslim countries being better than some Christian ones. Iraq- at 92%- is not split out demographically by ethnicity (although it is by religion), so we cannot see the anti-Semitism of the Kurds relative to the Sunni or Shi'a Arabs (although we could excise the Assyrians and Chaldeans, if we so desired). But even if we attributed a 100% anti-Semitism rating to the Arabs, Assyrians, Chaldeans and Yazid- at best- Iraqi Kurdistan would come out with an 85.3% anti-Semitism rating. So every country I listed is less anti-Semitic than the Kurds. Of course, your original definition was that you supported the Kurds and they "clearly fit [your] definition" but mentioned nothing about attitudes toward Jews, so it's my fault for picking "moderate" Muslim countries that are less anti-Semitic than your "moderate" Kurds.

I have nothing to counter those stats with but I do suspect them. I don't mind you trying to win your argument but in reality, as I believe there are substantial working relationships between Israel and Kurdistan (ah, to answer your next question, "not yet"), and as the Kurds seem to be an island of competence in a sea of maladroit, I am, in the words of the professor, skeptical.

It's the ADL's survey, not mine. You're welcome to critique them, I won't be offended. The Kurds certainly have far more affinity and better relations with Israel than do any of the Arab countries, including Jordan. I'm guessing it has a lot to do with some very similar roles in history, the lack of affinity for Palestinian nationality (since it's the Arabs- in concert with Turks and Persians- who are denying Kurdish nationalism) and they are culturally more moderate and politically Leftist). And none of the countries I listed as being 'as moderate as the Kurds' (by exhelodrvr1's definition) are Arabs.

But this is not the same thing as saying there's not an enormous strain of anti-Semitism running through Kurdish views of Jews. Commenters on this blog tend to think Muslims=Arab Muslims and that this whole dynamic is binary coded, but in fact the truth is usually much, much more complicated.

I dunno. Being situational does not mean there is love I guess, but it's not as if Israel hasn't been able to work with other locals, e.g. the Druze, the Bedouin. Respect is reasonably useful. I agree things are complicated. Hell, look at tradguy bashing every Christian who is not his own particular type of Christian. I thought they fixed that up at Westphalia back in the epoch.

Yeah, I was speaking to Kurdish affinity to Jews; you're talking about Jewish (specifically, Israeli Jewish) affinity to the Kurds -- the two (obviously) are not the same thing. I would agree with you whole-heartedly that Israeli affinity to the Kurds runs much stronger and that they would have no problems working more closely with them as they do with the Druze and Bedouins, and as they did (until six or seven years ago) with the Turks (when the latter turned toward increasingly Islamist political leadership).

I don't discard the potential weakness of ADL's data- you'd have to contact them to see how they conducted their survey in Iraq. To be honest, I wouldn't have selected "anti-Semitism" as the only distinguishing characteristic for what constitutes a "moderate Muslim," but it was exhelodrvr1 who introduced it (after proclaiming the Kurds as "clearly moderate," by the way, so he's kind of moving the goalposts on me).

Another weakness in the model we're using here is that we're attempting to account only for religion as a variable, when in fact, religion is just one of many characteristics, including nationality, culture, geography, economics, etc., Perhaps one reason that Malaysian Muslims aren't relatively all that anti-Semitic is because, you know, they're so far from Israel, don't have any reason to care about them and don't have much of an affinity with the Arabs. Palestinian Christians, on the other hand, are only slightly less anti-Israeli in their attitudes than the Palestinian Muslims, and so perhaps their *perceived* loss of a homeland grates on them and drives their anti-Jewish views (even though, frankly, they're probably much better off under Israel than a Hamas-led or really any Muslim-led leadership in Palestine, right?) But because our model is distinguishing only by religion, looking at just Malaysia and Palestine, would yield the ridiculous result that Christians are much more anti-Israel than Muslims. Perhaps religion cannot be said to be the only factor determining how a population will feel about any particular thing.

Again, this is where I point out that this stuff is really, really complicated and people trying to distill it down to something so simple- far more often than not- are full of it.

And 24 cents cheaper on Abe Books, albeit if I buy it via Amazon I could use reward points (but then I don't get the 5% )

With the 5% cash back the $4.19 total price is reduced to $3.98, making it only 3 cents more than the $3.95 available on ABEBooks.com, and that way althouse gets a little, so that's maybe the way to go.

It was written by the head of the ISI from 1983-87 so I am not sure I should get it. I prefer honest sources. It would help fill in the picture, though maybe.

And on the other hand, this little thing produced by the Lyndon LaRouche people in 1995 actually looks good:

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/1995/2241_afghansi_groups.html

(They always would have something accurate which they would then try to use to support their own lies or fantasies. )

The Nazis also educated German children for war, and inhumanity, but when these children grew up, and the Nazis were gone, they didn't act that way.

Paul Zrimsek said...11/17/15, 9:47 AM

PZ> This hopeful analogy depends rather heavily on ISIS being gone reasonably soon.

Well, not soon - it's just anyway whatever problem might come from these, or similar children, comes at least 10 or 15 years in the future. And if ISIS is still around, there will be alot more problems to wrry about in the interim.

Now what we have is that schools teaching something like that have been around for some time - many of the September 11, 2001 hijackers had attended some kind of pro-jihadism school in Saudi Arabia. They still had be carefully vetted by the imam who taught them or something like that, and personally approved by Osama bin Laden.

As a result of what's been going on the number of jihadists probably increases by about 20% every year if we do nothing. That number (20%) would be modest annual growth, which is where I think where we are. Still veey few jihadists, maybe in the low 5 figures, but growing.

As for President George W. Bush, I believe that he was the right man at the right time. The fact that he was betrayed by the Left reflects upon him- he should have expected it-but I beg to know who better. Gore? cue the fucking maniacal laughter.

WALLACE: If you were president right now, what would you be doing specifically in response to the attack on Paris?

CARSON: Well, obviously extending, you know, our support to the French. You know, that were our first allies, and we certainly want to stand with them and make sure that they understand that. And that we sympathize with them. But, you know, recognize that the president has a large array of resources available to him besides just the Pentagon. We need to use our intelligence to a much greater extents, our intelligence agencies. I think looking at the ideological war that's being waged by the jihadists, it has been very effective. And we need to wage a counter-war against them utilizing social media, and all the same mechanisms that they use.

And also, the clerics, we need to be putting pressure on them to disavow what ISIS is doing. You know, they can't sit on the sideline here. And I think also, you know, looking at what was accomplished recently, with the taking of a city, you know, that's a long-range thing and it worked very well with the Kurds, shutting off supplies, creating the right atmosphere, providing the type of air support. You know, we can start doing that with other places, too. You look at places like Mosul, you know, we can start now cutting off supplies and controlling --

Then Chris Wallace asked him some stupid question as to whom he would call first to put together a military alliance. He'd actually already answered that. France!

And besides which, people would be calling him once he made it known what he wanted.

Anyway Carson couldn't answer that. Of course. It would depend on the situation that he found himself in. Who suggested that silly question?

Now I felt abouit Carson is this: Carson has a shot at being like George W. Bush. What do I mean? After Sept. 11, 2001, I think Bush was offered some limited set of options and told he couldn't do anything more. Bush refused to say "OK" and the CIA was soon back with a plan to eliminate the Taliban, which worked. Using horse cavalry. Now Carson seems the kind of person who wouldn';t takle "we can't do it" for an answer.

I don't know who Bush called first, but I don't think it mattered. I think he read the riot act toward Pakistan.

Another answer is Israel. ISIS seems to be very afraid of tangling with Israel right now. Or Jordan, which is under Israel's security umbrella.

Huh? Raid for what? Opposition fighters? Saddam emptied his jails and got fighters for him. Possibly the most significant force.

ISIS holds mostly political prisoners, especially in certain types of prisons. You sort them out after you free them from ISIS.

In the raid where they thought Kurds were being kept, they found 69 political prisoners, who weer maybe going to be executed, and 6 - also political but members of ISIS who'd gotten into some trouble. Those they didn't release right away.

Former U.S. diplomat Richard Armitage said Friday that an official document detailing his conversation with President Pervez Musharraf's intelligence chief confirms he did not threaten that Pakistan would be bombed back into the Stone Age should the Pakistani leader refuse to join the U.S. fight against al Qaeda.

In a radio interview, Armitage, who was then deputy secretary of state, also said Musharraf had fired the intelligence director shortly after he had relayed the alleged U.S. threat to the Pakistani president.

Musharraf said in an that Armitage told a Pakistani official the United States would attack Pakistan if it didn't back the war on terror.

"The intelligence director told me that (Armitage) said, 'Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age,'" Musharraf said.

Armitage has disputed the language attributed to him but did not deny the message was a strong one.

"It did not happen. I was not authorized to say something like that. I did not say it," Armitage said Friday in an Associated Press Radio interview.

I think some people in Pakistan had to lie to get the intelligence agency to go along.

Armitage's message must have been strong, but not quite like that - just probably that Pakistan would have sanctions placed on it unless they helped.

...there's about 700,000 state and local police in the US. If there were only 7 "murdering cops" in the entire country- certainly below prosecution rates- that would be just 1 per 100,000 or 0.00001%, and conservatives (rightly) point out that condemning all police for such a small population is not fair. And yet the same percentage of "terrorist Muslims" worldwide would yield 18,000

That's a pretty good analogy. The numbers may be about right, and are not too far off even if they are tripled - and there's room for error in both cases.

Of course the terrorists are organzied - but that actually makes it easier.

... which, if you extrapolate from what about two dozen terrorists did in last weekend's tragedy in France, suggests that, statistically-speaking, we're not even close to the light at the end of the tunnel.

I would have bombed them. I would have hit any population center worthy of the name. We might have trouble erasing Russia, but we could absolutely erase Pakistan. I would have made them abase themselves. I would rather kill them than have their help and they would know this.

The United States was relying on Pakistan to get all Taliban and al Qaeda who went to the otehr side of Tora Bora. This was terribly foolish. John Kerry invented a different kind of mistake at Tora Bora.

They should also have demanded they tell us all they know. Including about China.

Obama did one thing right. He didn't tell Pakistan in advance about the bin Laden raid. I don't know if theer any otehr presidential candidate in 2008 who would have done it.

Then Obama spoiled his gains by telling them afterwards. He shouldn't have told them afterwards, either. Or promised not to do it aagin.

And he barely agreed to do a raid instead of a bombing, and mostly on grounds that he wouldn't be 100% certain he got bin Laden if he did that. But a lot of intelligence was collected And then not analyzed and not released to others.

I had meant to tell you this post was unworthy of you and is the kind of thing that makes me suspicious of your origins and agenda. You can say child indoctrination is useless, but quite a lot of history disagrees with you.

The Catholics, Hitler, Stalin all preached the idea of "show me the child at seven and I'll show you the man" and such.

Also, if it takes a long time, they have had a long time. A child in Afghan pre-K on 9/11 would now be a HS senior looking for girls to stone at the prom.

so I find your ideas lacking here, and since I judge your quality sufficient to know better, I wonder why you say something you don't believe.

Or...sigh, now I have to watch the videos.

Can someone explain why terrorist media exists and is allowed to exist? Can't we detect EM flying over AfPak, and bomb anything that scans like a TV camera? Why are we waiting on merry pranksters to disrupt their comms?

And yeah, Sammy, the way to win this ear is to flip the enemies. I thought KSA was done when all those terror funding princes started turning up dead in the desert. As you say, Musharraf/ISI squirmed out from under Bush somehow and avoided exploitation of e.g. the China relationship, but when the leader goes on TV and tells the people we have no choice but to cooperate, that's what I'm talking about. More!